


stuck up in the clouds

by anonymous_scapegoat



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Band Fic, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Nonbinary Doctor (Doctor Who), Other, RATED T FOR LANGUAGE bc i have a potty mouth and i'm ~~~projecting~~~, Slow Burn, content warning: american author, grossly inaccurate touring schedule/band habits - i'm doing my best friends lmao, imagine like. matt & kim meets pomplamoose meets st motel meets death cab. maybe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2020-05-28 08:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19390456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_scapegoat/pseuds/anonymous_scapegoat
Summary: Rose is touring in a band with her best friend in the world. Who she just so happens to maybe be in love with. And who probably definitely doesn’t love her back. But, if she just keeps her head down, she’s sure she can fake her way through the next… lifetime or so… without anything too embarrassing coming of it. She’s spent most of her life working retail, for Christ’s sake, and Ten calls that an extended piece of performance art.Ten is touring in a band with his best friend in the whole world. Who he just so happens to be maddeningly in love with. And who probably, definitely doesn’t love him back. With the first and best friendship he’s ever had on the line, he’s confident he can go just about the rest of his life without her finding out - after all, he’s a whole half a doctor, which is impressive no matter what Rose says.What could possibly go wrong?The slow burn, everybody lives, human childhood friends to lovers, band AU longfic literally nobody asked for, but goddamnit if I haven’t delivered.





	1. all i do is sit and think about you

**Author's Note:**

> Not so much a songfic as a single cohesive work in which chapter titles just happen to be lyrics from songs said chapters were inspired by. It might be a songfic. But it's probably not. You can’t prove anything.
> 
> (title's from "blue boss" by sampa the great)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ten.” He’d thought it quite clever when he thought it up as a stage name at sixteen. It wasn’t his birth name, which he hated, and he’d thought it unique, in a quirky sort of way. The Look Rose had given him when he’d burst into her room to get her opinion had said enough about what she thought, but she’d said it anyway - she always did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "it's not living" by the 1975

_“Ten.” He’d thought it quite clever when he thought it up as a stage name at sixteen. It wasn’t his birth name, which he hated, and he’d thought it unique, in a quirky sort of way. The Look Rose had given him when he’d burst into her room to get her opinion had said enough about what she thought, but she’d said it anyway - she always did._

_“It’s weird,” she’d sniped, lips just curling into a smile to take the edge off of the judgment. “Why Ten?”_

_“I meant for it to be weird,” he’d insisted. “It’s art! ‘Sides, how many people do you know who are named after numbers?”_

_Rose had held up a finger and unlocked her phone with her other hand. She'd looked up at him from her Google search and said, flatly, “There are 1,584 people in the United States named Seven.”_

_“I- Well, that’s- that’s nominal! Out of- out of seven billion people in the world that’s practically nothing, I mean- wait- why Seven, d’you think?”_

_“Lucky Sevens, maybe?” Rose had shrugged. “I dunno.”_

_“Huh.” He’d sat on the edge of her bed, stumped._

_“Y’know what, though, I think it’s growing on me, Ten,” she’d said, after several moments spent in contemplation. “We can work with that.”_

_She’d nodded, decisively, demeanor just barely pensive as a grin broke through the cracks, brand new stainless steel tongue piercing peeking through teeth._

_And then they’d sat, Rose and Ten for the first time, beaming at each other - on their way up in the world._

\---- 

Rose’s blood _hums_ as she crashes offstage, followed close behind by Ten, her best friend in the whole world, no questions asked, no answers given, end of story, thank you very much. She whirls around to hug him, tight, like she has a thousand times before, like she has after every show they’ve ever played together. Her face buries itself in the crook of his neck, her toes lifting off the ground as his arms wrap around her waist and lift her - his arms shake as he does, and Rose knows it’s not just exertion - he feels electric, too. He’s warm beneath her arms, and sweaty, and so is she; it should feel disgusting, suffocating, but it doesn’t. She’s alight with the adrenaline borne of a show well-done, humidity be damned. She’s never known a feeling better than this.

“We crushed that,” Rose gushes, as Ten finally lowers her to the ground. 

“Well-” Ten reaches to scratch the back of his neck before Rose slaps his arm back down. 

“Totally crushed it! No arguments, mister.” She scowls, raises herself back up onto her toes in a comical attempt to match his height and look down her nose at him. He relents, and smiles. She relents, and grins, a flash of silver poking between teeth. 

“We... Yeah, we crushed it.” Ten smiles at her and his eyes glitter like galaxies for just a moment and Rose, totally lost in them, misses the next thing he says. She tells herself it’s just the adrenaline winding down. 

“Huh?”

Ten scrutinizes her for just a moment before repeating their time-honored, traditional post-gig question. “Pizza and a movie? My place?” 

_ His place _ is a sort of ratty flat, right next door to Rose’s sort of ratty flat, the only difference being that  _ he _ lives alone, and  _ Rose _ lives with her mum. It’s almost funny that he asks now, given they’ll both be taking the tube back to the exact same place, and at this point Rose's presence in his flat is something of a given, except that he always does. Some weird quirk of etiquette he’s never outgrown - it’s endearing, if odd, like most things Ten does. 

“Natch,” says Rose. It’s not like she’s got anything better to be doing. 

The kickoff night of their tiny, nothing, psuedo-garage band’s first ever world tour has just finished up, and Hyde Park empties quickly into the balmy June evening. 

But of course, before they can leave there are things to  _ do _ . Even now, Donna Noble, tour manager supreme, is hustling towards them from deeper in the stage’s wings. 

“Right, you two,” she barks, certainly too far from them to speak normally, but altogether too close to be shouting like that. “Help us pack up, will you?”

Donna Noble is exceptional, of course, in that she keeps the pair of them - a couple of twenty-somethings with scrappy city backgrounds and newly acquired, heady fame - in line, but she is made more so by the fact that she does so willingly. She’d been the only member of the managerial staff at their record label to volunteer for the job, and so they’d taken her on - only slightly concerned that she might be mental - and cherished her since. 

She closes the distance between them, and her voice seems to approach an appropriate volume, and then skitter back away from it as if burnt by the thought.

“The drum kit needs packing, Rose, and Ten, please go help poor Tony figure out how you manage to fit all that bloody synth gear into just the one case,” Donna says briskly. “You do know we have more than enough funds for another box, don’t you?”

“Mine works just fine, thanks, Donna.” They’ve had this conversation a thousand times before, and it never changes. Ten’s grin is mischievous and then it’s gone - and him along with it, off to finagle delicate machinery into a smaller space than one should ever hope to confine it to. 

"Are we free to go after that?” Rose asks. 

Donna thinks for a moment. She looks Rose over. 

“That should be it,” she says, and offers up a brief smile - a rarity, while on the clock. “Enjoy your movie night.” 

Rose grins at Donna and hugs her briefly, before jogging over to help Dani, another member of their road crew, hoist her bass drum into its case. 

\---

After _multiple_ heated arguments over the movie, the snacks, the seating arrangement, and the TV volume, Rose and Ten settle in on Ten’s couch for their well deserved movie night. Before the opening credits are done, though, Rose’s cell starts ringing. 

_ Hey, Mickey, you’re so fi- _

“Hey!” Rose picks it up before the first line of her boyfriend Mickey’s self-imposed ringtone can finish. She goes to stand and take her call in the other room, but Ten pauses the movie with one hand and loops the other arm around her waist and tugs her back to the couch, eliciting a soft “oof.”

“Yeah, babe, I know, it was  _ wicked _ \- did you see my Instagram story?” Rose pauses - “Oh- well there’s some great footage of it there, you should check it out!”

Another pause - Ten grows a little antsy, just able to hear Mickey nattering on the other end of the call without being able to catch words. He taps his fingers absentmindedly against her stomach - she starts to try to squirm away, driven by muscle memory of tickle fights’ past more than anything else, so he stops. 

“I mean it was just- everything, y’know?” Ten startles as Rose’s free hand gesticulates wildly, just clipping his nose. “The- the crowd and the lights and the music… I can’t imagine anything better.” 

Another pause.

“Well of course I miss the charity kids, but-” Ten can see her start to droop, watches their evening go out the window in vivid technicolor clairvoyance as Mickey pokes at the open wound that is Rose's old job. He taps her on the shoulder, elaborately pantomimes tapping several different watches, and then flips completely upside down and kicks his feet over the back of the couch to wait for her at a new, more exasperated angle. “Mick, hold on a sec-  _ what, Ten? _ ”

“Would you please tell your  _ boyfriend _ that he’s interrupting a very important evening of watching one of the most accurate and poignant depictions of class struggle under late-stage capitalism currently extant in mainstream media?” Ten doesn’t even try to whisper like Rose had. He’s had very little patience for Mickey, for reasons he’s never quite been able to ascertain within himself, and he wants his bandmate back so they can continue basking in their post-show haze in peace. 

“Mick, listen - Ten and I are watching  _ A Bug’s Life _ right now and- can I call you back later?” Rose sighs. “I’d just rather talk in the morning. I'm tired.” 

A beat. 

“Yeah- I- Yeah. Love you too, babe. Night!” She hangs up and promptly loses her phone amidst the couch cushions - she can say it's intentional all she likes, but the truth of the matter is that it would have happened eventually anyway. It's like Ten's sofa _eats_ valuables. 

“ _ Finally _ !” groans Ten. He flips himself right side up again and, aggrieved, presses play. 

Upon some reflection, he's not totally sure what to say to make her feel better. When they'd been signed by the Face of Boe, she'd quit her job - a gig at a charity that gives underprivileged kids the chance to create music in oodles of different ways. It had been really important to her - the _kids_ had been really important to her - but so had their band. Ten had been sure, in the moment, not to pressure her into making any decisions - if she was going to travel the world with him, it had to be because she chose it, no matter how desperately he wanted her there with him - and yet, regret still seems to rear its head at inopportune times. 

Mickey, in particular, had always seemed averse to Rose quitting her day job - almost as though he hadn't expected her to be able to succeed without the security of the nine-to-five. But Ten is still blindsided by the fact that Mickey had chosen to bring up a subject that's clearly still touchy to Rose on a night where, by all counts, she's found success - where she should be allowed to feel simply _elated,_ Mickey's own fears or insecurities aside. To Ten, at least, it feels cruel. And because of that, even though Ten has known Rose now for going-on twelve years, he doesn't know what he could possibly say to make this situation less sucky. But dammit, he'll still try. 

"You know those kids think you're fucking _amazing_ , right?" Ten says, pulling at her hand until she thumps her head onto his shoulder and nestles in. "How many kids get to say that a _rockstar_ taught them to play the ukulele?" 

"I mostly taught bass." Her voice is muffled by his sweater. 

Ten gives her a Look that he knows she can feel even if she can't see him. 

"You know what I mean," he says. "They _still_ look up to you - you gave them options, outlets, for the first time in their lives. This is just one more example to give of all the options - all the possibilities! - that are out there for them." 

Rose sighs very deeply, which is how Ten knows that she knows that he's right, even if she doesn't like it. 

"Rose, you're one of the best people I know - and you _know_ that I wouldn't just say that, because I am mean," Ten says, carefully piling popcorn on top of Rose's head - maybe to prove his point, maybe because it's always funny when she notices he's doing it. "Being brave enough to chase what you want doesn't change that." 

Rose doesn't know how to respond - she never does, when her goofy, converse-clad, encyclopedic best friend somehow pulls the kind of sagacity she'd expect from a guidance counselor, or maybe a very old rat who trains mutant turtles, out of his ass. Especially when he does so in the same breath that he uses to blow over the pile of popcorn he's built atop her head, and send kernels skittering down the neck of her shirt and all over the couch for her to find later. 

So instead of saying anything, she slaps him. Then she digs into a bowl of popcorn and chocolate covered raisins, and eventually lets the dulcet tones of insectoid labor exploitation lull her to sleep. 

When Rose wakes up in the morning, still in Ten's apartment - as she always has, after almost every Friday movie night for all of her high school career - she's alone on the ratty, gluttonous couch, tucked securely underneath Ten’s softest blanket. 

  
  



	2. i got a feeling (and it’s dangerous)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "sugar youth" - green day
> 
> school got the better of me. i've been working on this chapter for almost a year. have mercy <3

_ The same day Ten came out to Rose - fifteen years old, gangly and anxious - she logged into Etsy on her flat’s boxy, slow Macintosh desktop and ordered a Punks Respect Pronouns patch to sew onto her too-big denim jacket with her mum’s credit card.  _

_ Months later - without him even having to say anything to her - he walked into Rose’s apartment to find Jackie on that same computer, researching nonbinary gender identities. She’d looked caught out - tried to hide what was on the screen with the Harrods online shopping home page. He’d hugged her, tight, then gone to find Rose. He never told her about that particular encounter. _

_ The next year, when Ten finally came out to his parents, both bi and trans at once, he found himself suddenly and without warning an emancipated minor. Which was a very watered down way of saying that his parents no longer wanted anything to do with him. He’d moved in with his gran, who happened to live on the same estate as the Tylers. _

_ Within that year, his parents had died in a house fire. Ten had never known how to feel - whether to mourn, or celebrate, or just be grateful he hadn’t died. He didn’t go to the funeral.  _

* * *

It is easy, but perhaps reductive, to say that Rose is Ten’s best friend. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that she was his very first friendship, and certainly the only one that stuck. It would perhaps be most accurate to say that he’s written more love songs about her than about anybody else he’s known, in a strictly platonic sense. But “best friend” rolls off the tongue nicely, better than “the only person who’s consistently had my back for my entire life and who I would probably die for, if need be, and almost certainly the one person I love more than anyone else in the world” - with the added benefit of not giving anyone the wrong idea about the nature of their relationship. Of course.

Of everyone who knows the two of them, Mickey should be the most familiar with this being the way of things - he’s been friends with both of them since middle school. Which is why the argument currently unfolding before Ten is so totally baffling. 

“What do you  _ mean _ , ‘I spend all my time with Ten?’” Rose grits out. “We  _ work _ together! By that logic, you spend all your time with Nancy!”

Nancy is the sixty year old secretary in Mickey’s office. Ten’s met her maybe twice, but knows from experience that she is a prolific and talented baker. Not talented enough that Rose should perceive the woman as a threat to her relationship, but certainly gifted. 

“Plus!” Rose adds, jabbing a righteous finger in Mickey’s face. “Plus, we’re going on tour. What d’you expect me to do, sit alone in my hotel room every night? Look out windows waiting for the day I’m returned to you? Should I not get to live my dream just because you’re not there?”

Mickey is gaping slightly. The two have been dating for a few years now; the poor man has not grown used to bearing the brunt of Rose’s temper in that time. He looks as though he might be about to speak - Ten hopes he has something clever to say, for Mickey’s own sake - but Rose is not done yet. 

“And, I- of  _ course _ , I miss you! I love you! But my life can’t just be this… joyless shell every time you sashay out of my line of sight,” Rose sighs, petering out. “I’m… I’m not mad. I just don’t understand what you want from me.” 

Mickey cuts a helpless glance at Ten, who shrugs and does his best to convey that really this is Mickey’s hole to un-dig, and Ten does not own a shovel, nor does he have any interest in acquiring one. 

Ten himself is beginning to feel a bit like a wall ornament, and while he’s always had the sense that maybe sitting in on the couple’s arguments should make him uncomfortable, he’s usually more engaged than anything else in the tennis-like volley of the many and varied spats. He’s about had his fill now, though, so he clears his throat. 

“If I may-” he begins, only to be cut off by both Mickey and Rose at once. 

“You may not.” And with that, the tension is broken. They both laugh, make soft eye contact, sigh. Just like he knew they would.  _ Jesus Christ. _

_ This _ is when Ten will be making his exit - this is when they make up, and it’s usually rife with PDA that makes Ten’s gut squirm for reasons he can’t quite determine. He’s helped them resolve things - mutual irritation with Ten himself has historically been effectively motivating - but that is the extent of his self-proclaimed best friend duty. He has no obligation to stick around for the aftermath. 

As they start murmuring softly to each other, Ten slips out of Rose’s kitchen and back across the hall to his own, only stopping briefly to wave goodbye to Jackie in the living room. 

He shuffles a couple doors down and digs in his pocket to retrieve a ring of chipped keys, slotting the largest into his doorknob and shouldering the sticky door open to reveal an apartment that would be strikingly similar to the one he’d just left, if not for the excess of embroidery on the walls.

He unearths his keyboard from the mess beneath his bed and sets up at the kitchen table. It’s early evening now, and with Rose and Mickey making up across the hall, he’ll have plenty of time to plunk some ideas down. They leave tomorrow morning for their next tour destination - this marking the more official start of the “world” part of things - and Ten’s not sure he’ll have the privacy or the time - or, being honest, the motivation - to write while they’re away. And records don’t write themselves. 

Splaying his fingers across well-loved keys, Ten closes his eyes for a moment to think. He’s done this a million times, deep breaths in a kitchen that smells like paint and coffee to get the creative juices flowing, but this time… His mind doesn’t so much wander as find a bench labeled “Rose” and promptly sit down. 

He’d had a crush on her, when they were younger - both in high school, confronting prom and A levels and acne attached at the hip. He’d held her hand through each new piercing, and she’d held his as his life fell apart bit by bit, and somewhere along the way he’d fallen in love. A maddening kind of love, that had him gasping for breath every time she grinned. 

Even the feeling of the plastic beneath his fingers makes him think of her. This is the first keyboard he’d ever owned. She’d dragged him out of his too-loud house on a Saturday morning, pockets jingling with allowance money, and he’d trailed behind her with an aimless curiosity as she wandered the aisles of a shitty music shop with parted lips and bright eyes. Her fingers had hovered reverently over the frets of the sorriest-looking used guitar Ten had ever seen.  _ His _ eyes had lingered on chipped, coffee-stained synth keys. His hands itched to know how they felt - what they would sound like. They’d both left the shop light on cash, and high on dreams.

He’d loved her so desperately he’d thought he’d choke on it. He'd been certain it would consume him and ruin everything they had. 

But then he’d gone away to college. He took it as an opportunity to get his head on straight - if there was ever a time to lose one’s best friend, it was during the longest period of time they’d ever been separated for, and Ten was not for taking chances - and he righted himself. So, he was over her, back to being best friend extraordinaire - as luck would have it, he’d moved on just in time to be thrilled for her when she called to inform him that Mickey had finally asked her out, late his sophomore year.

So why, now, can he only think about the flush line of her body against Mickey’s, connected not just at lips but at chest-hips-hands-thighs? Why is his mind consumed with flushed-pink cheeks and a silver-studded tongue, small, roaming hands and chipped black nail polish, parted lips and wide blue eyes and a small, surprised sound in the back of her throat as he-?

Ten’s eyes fly open as his clenching fingers slam down on discordant keys. What. The. Fuck.

He feels like a hormonal teenager again, unable to control his thoughts, and finds that he has to take several slow, deep breaths to calm himself. Heart pounding, he stands and puts the kettle on. 

Where had that come from? He’d moved on, it’s been years since his traitorous brain had last whispered dangerous  _ what if’s _ to his all-too-eager heart. He loves Rose, has always loved Rose, but not like that - not anymore. 

Except. Well.  _ Jesus Christ.  _

* * *

Rose’s evening has taken a turn for the… well. It’s hard to say, really. With her and Mickey on the edge of reconciliation after one more ridiculous fight, Rose’s stomach is a turbulent mess of an organ, and she wishes it would pipe down. It calls too much attention to her heart’s hesitations. 

Even as Ten’s comment inexplicably smooths the harsh edges of her anger, even as she finds herself able to smile at Mickey again, something in her chest twists rebelliously, and she doesn’t understand. But, they reconcile. That is a good thing. That is always a good thing - every time. So Rose decides to focus on what’s simple.

Rose’s evening has taken a turn for the better. It has. 

She kisses Mickey once, with her mouth closed, and pulls him to sit next to her on the couch. 

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“This is hard.” Suddenly, Rose is blinking back tears. “It’s going to get harder.” 

“Yeah,” Mickey sighs. “Yeah, but - we’ll be alright.” 

Rose loves Mickey. She does. She’s loved him since he asked her out a couple years after high school, and hasn’t stopped. Rose doesn’t understand why, at his words, that rebellious something in her chest twists with  _ dread _ . 

Except that she does. Terrible certainty dawns upon her bit by bit, as Rose realizes she doesn’t  _ want _ them to be alright. Or rather, she loves Mickey too much to put him through trying to be alright. Or maybe, a little bit of both.

“Will we?” she asks. “Ten’s coming with me on tour, you know. He sort of has to.” 

“Well, yeah, but,” Mickey flounders for a moment, “but, we’ll call every night, and. And nothing’s going on between you two, so. So it’ll be fine. Right?”

“Nothing’s going on between us,” Rose repeats. There goes her chest again. She's quiet for a moment.

“Rose, you’re kinda freaking me out,” Mickey says. His unease shifts towards anger, just like it always does. “ _ Is _ there something-?”

“Of course not,” Rose snaps. “I’m so tired of this.” 

“ _ You’re _ tired?” Mickey asks. “Think about  _ me _ ! You know he makes me nervous.”

“I  _ am  _ thinking about you!” Rose is nearly shouting, already, and she is so tired. “I always am.”

Rose loves Mickey, but sometimes a person worth loving well is a person worth letting go. He deserves to be happy, and so does she. Rose is not happy as a desperate pillar in a crumbling house. She is tired of holding it up, and so, she lets the roof cave in. 

* * *

When Rose bursts into Ten’s apartment like a thunderstorm, eyes red and face cloudy, Ten is still perched on his kitchen counter, staring aggrievedly into a cold mug of Earl Grey as though it has done him a personal wrong. He startles at her arrival, and she pauses in the entryway and stares at him for a moment. He knows she is taking in his ruffled feathers even as the sight of her soothes them. She has a way of doing that. 

“Where’s the boy toy?” Ten asks, genuinely confused. He’d been so consumed by his thoughts of what they must be doing together by now that his mind can’t seem to parse the fully-clothed and teary Rose standing in front of him. 

She is across the room and in his arms in a moment, and Ten can’t remember how he usually holds her, suddenly doesn’t know where to put his arms so that she can’t sense the terrible shift that has occurred in him against his will. But she is warm and solid and she smells like peach conditioner, and soon muscle memory takes over for his panicked consciousness. 

“We broke up,” Rose whispers into his collarbone, burrowing impossibly closer. 

Something in Ten’s chest  _ roars _ its approval even as his stomach plummets. 

“Oh,” he says. He tries to say  _ I’m sorry _ . He finds he can’t form the words. 

Instead, he pours still-warm water from the kettle over another teabag and guides her to the couch. They sit together, a cooking show on the quiet television, legs tucked under Rose’s favorite blanket, Rose tucked under Ten’s right arm. 

Ten thinks it’s a wonder she can’t feel the electricity burning his skin where they touch. He doesn’t know how to relax, and so he sits stock-still even as her breathing evens out and she falls asleep, soft snores fanning across his shoulder. 

He stares at her, and catalogues the sweep of her eyelashes brushing against soft pink cheeks, the curve of her nose and the tilt of her mouth, the remaining smudge of eyeliner he knows he should wake her up to wash off. Instead, he reaches tentatively with his left hand to sweep a lock of blonde hair from her face and tucks it behind her ear. His fingertips ache where they ghost across her skin. 

_ Fuck _ . 


End file.
